Warm Bodies Page 0,57

it was all me. She poured it all into me. Dad was hardly around so it was always just her and the little brat. I remember having so much fun, she used to take me to this water park back in - ' A tiny sob catches her by surprise, choking off the words, and she covers her mouth with her hand. Her eyes plead with me through strands of dirty hair. I gently brush it out of her face. 'She just wasn't built for this fucking place,' she says, her voice warbling in falsetto. 'What was she supposed to do here? Everything that made her alive was gone. All she had left was this stupid twelve-year-old with ugly teeth who kept waking her up every night wanting to snuggle away a nightmare. No wonder she wanted out.'

'Stop,' I say firmly, and turn her to face me. 'Stop.' Tears are running down her face, salty secretions shooting through ducts and tubes, past bright pulsating cells and angry red tissues. I wipe them away and pull her into me. 'You're . . . alive,' I mumble into her hair. 'You're . . . worth living for.'

I feel her shudder against my chest, clinging to my shirt as my arms surround her. The air is silent except for the light whistle of the breeze. Nora is looking our way now, twisting a finger through her curls. She catches my eye and gives me a sad smile, as if to apologise for not warning me. But I'm not afraid of the skeletons in Julie's closet. I look forward to meeting the rest of them, looking them hard in the eye, giving them firm, bone-crunching handshakes.

As she dampens my shirt with sadness and snot, I realise I'm about to do another thing I've never done before. I suck in air and attempt to sing. 'You're . . . sensational . . .' I croak, struggling for a trace of Frank's melody. 'Sensational . . . that's all.'

There's a pause, and then something shifts in Julie's demeanour. I realise she's laughing.

'Oh wow,' she giggles, and looks up at me, her eyes still glistening above a grin. 'That was beautiful, R, really. You and Zombie Sinatra should record Duets, Volume 2.'

I cough. 'Didn't get . . . warm-up.'

She brushes some of my hair back into place. She looks back at the grave. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a wilted airport daisy with four petals remaining. She sets it on the bare dirt in front of the headstone. 'Sorry, Mom,' she says softly. 'Best I could find.' She grabs my hand. 'Mom, this is R. He's really nice, you'd love him. The flower is from him, too.'

Even though the grave is empty, I half expect her mother's hand to burst out of the earth and grip my ankle. After all, I'm a cell in the cancer that killed her. But if Julie is any indication, I suspect her mother might forgive me. These people, these beautiful Living women, they don't seem to make the connection between me and the creatures that keep killing everything they love. They allow me to be an exception, and I feel humbled by this gift. I want to pay it back somehow, earn their forgiveness. I want to repair the world I've helped destroy.

Nora rejoins us as we leave Mrs Grigio's grave. She rubs Julie's shoulder and kisses her head. 'You okay?'

Julie nods. 'As much as ever.'

'You want to hear something nice?'

'So badly.'

'I saw a patch of wild flowers by my house. They're growing in a ditch.'

Julie smiles. She rubs the last few tears out of her eyes and doesn't say anything more.

I peruse the headstones as we walk. They are crooked and haphazardly placed, making the cemetery look ancient despite the dozens of freshly dug graves. I am thinking about death. I'm thinking how brief life is compared to it. I'm wondering how deep this graveyard goes, how many layers of coffins are stacked on top of each other, and what portion of Earth's soil is made from our decay.

Then something interrupts my morbid reflections. I feel a lurch in my stomach, a queer sensation like what I imagine a baby kicking in the womb might feel like. I stop in mid-step and turn around. A featureless rectangular headstone is watching me from a nearby hill.

'Hold on,' I say to the girls, and begin climbing the hill.

'What's he doing?' I hear Nora ask under her breath. 'Isn't that